The Galland School: An Iowa First

Iowa's first pioneer students
began their education in a one-room log cabin in the south-eastern part of
the state. In 1830 school buses could not have even been imagined by the people
on the wild prairie, so most students walked to school. Some students canoed
across the Mississippi River. Isaac Galland, an Illinois doctor and lawyer
who had established a settlement called National (now in Lee County), designed
and built Iowa's first known pioneer school in 1830.

Crude Building

Neighbors and friends helped Galland
construct the tiny, 10-by-12 foot building from logs split by hand tools.
Because nails and other building equipment were scarce, settlers used mud
to hold the building together. Mud was also used to make a chimney and to
fill in cracks to keep out the winter wind. Holes were cut in the logs for
windows, and thin, oiled cloth covered the openings.

Galland hired a 23-year-old man
named Berryman Jennings to teach the first term from October to December.
Jennings moved to National from Illinois to instruct between six and eight
students. Jennings did not earn any money teaching. Instead he received food,
firewood and furniture for his room in Dr. Galland's home. He was also allowed
to read Galland's rare medical books. Jennings planned to become a doctor
and needed the books to study medicine.

Rough Conditions

Learning was a challenge in the
log building. Chilling winds whistled through the walls on cold days as students
huddled over their lessons. Little light came in through the oil cloth windows
on cloudy days. Students sat on two log benches and had to stand to reach
the high, rough boards that served as desk tops. Books and paper were scarce.

Kids studied in the school until
1833 when settlers, including Jennings and Galland, moved away and closed
the school. After the building was abandoned a family lived in it for a short
time, and it was later cut up for firewood. In 1924 the Keokuk chapter of
the Daughters of the American Revolution marked the school's original site
with a boulder. A model of the original school was placed near Montrose in
1940 so Iowa's first known school would be remembered as an important part
of the state's history.